Hastings, direct.

It was our four year anniversary on Friday so we booked £10 return tickets to Hastings and, thanks to Sarah's fantastic recommendation, stayed for two nights in Hastings House- a very pretty, seafront b&b with a mean line in free jaffa cakes and a very good fry up.

Yes, yes, Hastings wasn't the first place I thought of when imaging a romantic weekend away either but after hearing a few people mention that the charity and junk shops were plentiful and cheap, I managed to persuade Ed with the cheap train tickets and the promise of some beach-side walks. And I'm so glad I did. I totally fell in love with the place. It was freezing, below zero on the mornings we walked along the coast to the Old Town, with all the wonderful shops centered around George Street.

A pop-up junk shop in a very run down building- such a good idea to get using some of the abandoned and empty shops.

Butler's Emporium was, until March 2010, an old-school hardware shop packed full of tools and sandpaper. Now it's an amazing space filled with oddities, home wares and textiles. It's huge, with unfinished walls and nooks and crannies everywhere.

Early afternoon G&T at the Dragon Bar on George Street.

This was my outfit for a meal on the Friday where I ate eight (!) different types of seafood in two courses. Winner. I'm wearing a 1950's feather print tea dress that I bought from Beyond Retro on my birthday for £18.

And now onto my favourite place: The Imaginarium (sadly, it has no online presence): a shop within a shop full of taxidermy, preserved hanging bats, preserving domes, antique bird cages, bones, religious paraphernalia and some very lovely old embroidered samples. Unfortunately, unlike the rest of the junk shops, this stuff wasn't the cheapest, but I'll be back to stock up on something weird to add to my collection.

I though I'd end this with some dogs driving a van. Because your day can't get much better when you see something like this!